Ethan saw it too.

But Veyrakas wouldn’t let him disengage.

After taking that hit, Veyrakas’ style turned even more suffocating—golden holy light kept pressing in from shifting angles, wrapping tight and refusing to give Ethan a clean lane to break away.

"Hold on! I’m coming!" Ethan shouted, parrying another surge of holy light as he forced his way toward Anya.

Hearing that, Anya yanked back the breath she’d almost let go. She looked up and saw Ethan still pushing toward her. She clenched her teeth and squeezed out power she didn’t really have left.

In the next instant, bright red light detonated across her whole body. The lightning dragon that had been deadlocked suddenly changed.

It let out a piercing, drawn-out scream. The currents across its body thickened and brightened, its head dropping lower as it lunged forward with a more vicious, tearing intent.

When the two dragon heads collided, red light exploded at the impact point. A thunderous shock raced along the entire length of the ice dragon.

Then—

The Frost Dragon that had been holding the advantage was split clean in two.

Kaelthar’s pupils snapped tight.

He knew the destruction of the Frost Dragon wouldn’t directly backfire on him.

But the problem was—the lightning dragon didn’t slow at all after shattering the ice.

It opened its massive jaws, savage current still boiling, and kept coming—trying to swallow him whole.

Kaelthar brought his palms together again.

Ice-blue cold surged from his skin, coating his shoulders, chest, throat—then spreading over his entire body.

In only a few breaths, he turned completely ice-blue. Flesh crystallized into solid frost. His whole body became a humanoid statue forged from ice.

And right then, the red dragon reached him.

It bit down and swallowed Kaelthar whole.

Seeing it, the tension in Anya’s body finally loosened by a thread. Her chest heaved. Her arms started to drop.

But she hadn’t even gotten halfway through that breath when her eyes changed.

The dragon in the sky... suddenly stopped.

Not slowing. Not getting pushed back.

It froze—locked stiff in midair, even the boiling current pausing for a heartbeat.

A crisp cracking sound rang from inside the dragon’s body.

Crash—

Fine ice chips burst outward as the lightning dragon began collapsing from within. Cracks ran from its head through its body to its tail, and in the blink of an eye it shattered apart completely—breaking into red electric fragments mixed with flying ice dust, all of it dispersing into the void.

Anya’s eyes widened.

Kaelthar—who’d been swallowed—stood there unharmed.

He didn’t give her time to react. The instant he broke free, he lifted a hand toward the sky. Cold power gathered higher up at terrifying speed.

A thick ice pillar slammed down from above, dragging a dull pressure-wind, aimed straight at Anya’s head.

It was too fast. Too heavy.

Anya’s earlier full burst had practically drained everything she could still move. She tried to dodge, but her legs wouldn’t answer. She tried to raise her arms, but her shoulders and elbows felt filled with lead.

All she could do was watch that massive ice pillar grow larger in her vision, her heartbeat slamming hard enough to hurt.

Panic surged straight into her skull.

She squeezed her eyes shut, her whole body trembling—

Then suddenly, she felt the ground vanish under her.

A force grabbed her and yanked her out of place.

That weightless sensation—being ripped away from the edge of death—hit so abruptly she couldn’t even process it before she was already lifted into the air.

"Ethan!"

Anya’s eyes snapped open, and the first thing she saw was him.

Ethan had one arm wrapped around her, hauling her close. The other hand was still threaded with transparent arcs that hadn’t fully faded—proof he’d forcibly torn himself away from the other fight to get here.

He pulled Anya out of the ice pillar’s kill zone and retreated into safer space in the same motion.

Kaelthar’s face finally sank all the way.

He twisted his head toward Veyrakas.

Off in the distance, Veyrakas was pinned in place by transparent lightning.

It wasn’t just a simple bind. Currents crisscrossed in layered locks—like a cage built out of electricity—sealing his arms, shoulders, and legs at once.

Veyrakas fought hard, golden holy light surging outward in repeated bursts. But every time he managed to pry open even the tiniest gap, the transparent current slammed back down and forced it shut again.

He couldn’t break free.

Ethan glanced down at Anya, then ruffled her hair. There was clear worry in his eyes—something close to pain.

"You okay?"

Anya leaned against him. Her face was still pale, but she shook her head obediently.

"I’m fine. Just... tired."

"Veyrakas!" Kaelthar roared.

He didn’t chase Anya again. He turned and shot toward Veyrakas. As he flew, freezing power gathered in his hand, condensing into a razor-sharp ice spike. The instant he got close, he didn’t hesitate—he drove that spike straight into a crisscross point in the transparent lightning.

Ice and lightning collided head-on with a shriek.

The prison finally tore open—ripped into a gap by force.

Veyrakas surged through the opening immediately. He stumbled forward a step, breathing heavy.

"I’m fine."

He shook his head, one hand gripping Kaelthar’s shoulder to steady himself. Then he lifted his other hand and swung it upward hard.

Golden light poured down from above.

This wasn’t the aggressive holy light from before.

It was softer. Denser. A heavy layer of gold radiance.

Infernal Abyss holy light washed over the two of them. Split skin, lightning-torn wounds, blood marks shaken loose by impacts—everything began knitting back together at a visible speed.

Not fully healed.

But a lot better.

Ethan watched, brow lifting slightly.

So Infernal Abyss holy light could heal too.

Veyrakas coughed inside the gold glow, his expression still ugly.

The healing stabilized him, but the injuries he’d taken weren’t the kind a single layer of restoration could erase completely. Even with the wounds mostly closed, he still couldn’t go all-out without consequences.

He and Kaelthar exchanged a look.

It was brief—but it was enough.

In the next instant, they moved together.

Kaelthar swept left, Veyrakas swept right. One blue, one gold, they pressed in from different angles with terrifying coordination.

Ice sealed off routes. Holy light forced the front.

They weren’t going to let Ethan isolate and pick them apart again—they were clearly trying to crush him as a pair.

Anya slipped out of Ethan’s arms.

She really had burned a lot, but with a few breaths she’d regained more than half her strength. And with Ethan’s hold on still ringing in her head, her focus sharpened instead of fading. The light came back into her eyes.

Ethan looked down at her for a beat, a flicker of relief and approval in his gaze.

Then his expression hardened again.

He turned into a streak of transparent light and shot forward first.

At the same time, Anya became a bright red comet from the other side, meeting the two incoming forces head-on.

This time, they didn’t fight separately.

They raised their arms almost in sync.

Transparent lightning and bright red lightning erupted from opposite sides, each carving a thick, blazing line through the air—then twisting together.

The two streams coiled, spiraled, compressed—rising higher, brighter, heavier—until they condensed into something vast above them.

A dragon.

Bigger than anything they’d formed before.

Horns, head, body, claws—every part of it woven from transparent and bright red lightning interlaced so tightly it looked almost solid.

When it coiled in the high void, the clouds around it were blasted apart. Space tightened in visible ripples. Even the energy currents around the warship recoiled as if shoved back by instinct.

Sky and void both seemed to change color under its glare.

Electric light flooded every direction until the whole world felt like it only had room left for one thing—

That dragon.